Daily Reading: Philippians 3:12-21
Paul’s lockdown thinking time has confirmed deeply in him that knowing Jesus Christ personally is all that really matters. Knowing, obeying, and enjoying Jesus is what living is all about. So, we are told twice in this reading that Paul’s mission is to ‘pursue’ Jesus (3:12,14). We say to ‘go hard’ after something is to want it and work hard for it. That is very much how Paul is speaking here – Go hard in a life of closeness with Jesus, toward a goal of eternity with Jesus.
And we are not to do this in our own strength. In one of Paul’s other lockdown letters, to the Ephesian church he said this:
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge... Ephesians 3:17-19
Determination and vision to know Jesus and be with him for ever, these qualities helped Paul through his isolation.
